Thread:US president Barack Obama backs mosque near Ground Zero site/Out of respect.../reply (7)

The example is not one of disagreement but deliberate provocation.

After some digging, it looks like this was owned by a private citizen. The property was sold about a year ago to the real-estate agency that owns it now. It is physically connected to property currently owned by Consolidated Edison, which has a lease agreement with the agency. The agency is trying to exercise its purchase option so that it can own the entire building and develop the mosque.

The groups proposing the establishment of the mosque to the agency don't want to reveal their funding sources, and since they're not publicly traded companies nor do they receive government assistance, I guess they don't have to (by the law). It would be a good use of intelligence operations to discreetly determine the sources so that the government can evaluate the threat of it being a terrorist front; but that's the government's business, and it's a kind of business that they won't exactly tell us about.

It would go a long way towards validating their intentions, though, if they just saved us the trouble and disclosed their investors. Other Muslim groups are asking them to do this, as well. Regardless, there is law, which needs to transcend our passions and fears.